Buying Links To Rank Better

As most of us know, at least those who received Google penalties on well trafficked sites, Google does not like paid links.

I have had all of my websites dinged by Google for various reasons and not all because of paid links.

Some dings were very bad on my website traffic and some dings were very minor and I made that traffic back after a few months.

Some of my sites had paid links that I can understand why Google would see it as manipulating search results.

Other links were simply me getting relevant traffic back to my site from websites that could send me buyers.

In one example you are buying links to rank well and in the other example you are simply trying to get buyers to your site.

Google has no problem with linking for the purpose of legitimate relevant traffic from one site to another but even then you have to be careful.

Google has an automated system and even if your good intentions are great the automated system may decide you are trying to manipulate search results.

If you think you are in a shady area you might as well create a “no follow” on that link to be safe.

So after all the changes with Googles search algorithm can you still rank by buying links from directories, forums, and other old school link building methods.

I have seen proof you can rank in top positions on Google by using old school link buying methods as early as last month.

The practices that should not work anymore often still do work and what SEO companies are doing is making the whole process appear more natural by scheduling it out over time and varying the anchor text.

If you do this link buying and building practice right you can rank very well with only 30 paid back links and often less.

I am not saying you won’t get caught eventually as these algorithms are very smart.

So what’s the alternative to these black hat tactics? You could simply market using industry standard online and offline marketing best practices by promoting a really awesome product and let the links build themselves.

Problem is you may not have an awesome product are big enough movement for anyone to even give a hoot about.

Do you have an experience where old school link building has been working for you after all the significant changes to Google’s search algorithm?